Adolescents and the Social Media: The Coming Storm

In her book Failure to Connect: How computers affect our Children’s Minds, sounded the alarm to the educational community that computers would not impact the intellectual growth of children in the ways that had been anticipated by the Clinton Administration when they started the push to have the world-wide web integrated into American classrooms by passing the Classroom 2000 education initiative. In a speech in April of 2013, Clinton would follow-up by saying that the modern internet has forced a change in what we consider to be forms of good citizenship. The future will redefine how we should act and interact. Unfortunately, while there have been definite gains in the ease of accessing information from a variety of sources using the internet, it now appears that the internet might also be having a seriously negative effect on students. It is now becoming evident that the internet has redefined and expanded the meaning of bullying. The emergence of social media sites and its impact within the repertoire of high school and college students needs to be tested empirically as well as in the court of law. Recently, however, a new trend has emerged and is observed in the establishment of anonymous “confession” sites tied into college and high school campuses. These sites appear to be an extension of the impact of Facebook and Twitter on students, and unfortunately, much of what is being witnessed on those sites is negative and hurtful and it is proving to be a challenge for administrators, teachers and parents to understand or control. The ability to remain anonymous and to add hashtags (#) for emphasis is often misused by adolescents who don’t always think through the end result of actions

The Commonwealth Games as an Example of Bringing States Closer Through Sport

The aim of the article is to investigate the issue of positive sports diplomacy directed at bringing countries closer and deepening cooperation between them. Generally, sports diplomacy is a broader term and may include various ways of utilizing sport, both negative and positive, even for the sake of nation-branding. Positive sports diplomacy most commonly refers to bringing hostile states closer together, but it may also be used to deepen political alliances or foster friendship and cooperation between states that are not mutually hostile. The research focuses on the latter form of positive sports diplomacy. The investigation is a case study concerning the Commonwealth Games, a sports event that is held once every four years and gathers countries and territories that used to belong to the former British Empire. The research therefore aims to determine whether this event, the second largest multisport event in the world, is significant from political and diplomatic perspectives. A second research question concerns whether the Commonwealth Games should be seen as an attempt by Great Britain to maintain influence in its former colonies. The research attempts to test the hypothesis that the Commonwealth Games are an important contributor to sustaining ties between states of the former British Empire.The research has been financed by the National Science Centre of Poland, project number 2015/19/D/HS5/00513

Integrating the Suburbs: A Park Forest Case Study

The production of human living spaces operates largely within the confines of political economy. As such, myriad actors influence the economic and social character of places. And over time, places prove essentially dynamic. This paper considers the influence of political economy on the African American suburban experience during the second half of the twentieth century, focusing specifically on Park Forest, Illinois

Offences against the (Moral) Person: HIV Transmission Offences in Australia

HIV transmission remains a focus of criminal prosecutions in Australia, with many of these cases appearing before Victorian courts. This paper will specifically explore the Victorian prosecution of Michael Neal, who was sentenced to 18 years gaol in 2009 for HIV-related offences. This was the first Victorian prosecution that used intentional and attempt provisions. Neal was portrayed as an evil, vindictive criminal in television and newspaper reports. His monstrous culpability was compounded by the subtext of bisexuality and hedonism, but also his implied transcendence from heteronormativity to homodeviance. His sexuality was located within various esoteric, depraved and rapacious imaginations, such as sadomasochism, gay orgies and conversion parties. He became a simulacrum of the ‘grim reaper’ of early Australian AIDS campaigns whereby he signified an indeterminate HIV risk for multiple unknown innocents. He was both risky and culpable. This paper will explore the construction of his risky criminal identity within the socio-legal imagination of HIV transmission criminality.Sydney Institute of Criminology; School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Sydne

Adolescents in Alternative Education Settings

Alternate Education Settings (AES) are public school setting that meet the needs of highly at-risk youth. Adolescents who are enrolled in an alternative education setting often also have a mental health diagnosis; this group is often under-researched. Thus, this paper focuses on adolescents in different types of alternative education settings like Montessori, behavior-focused, and credit recovery programs. This review of the research discusses the qualifications to be in an alternative education setting, interventions to use with adolescents\u27 in these schools who also might have a mental health diagnosis and finally the separate roles a counselor plays in the clients\u27 life. With this information, counselors will be able to better treat adolescents who attend alternative schools

ENSURING STUDENT SUCCESS IN FULL-DAY KINDERGARTEN: PURPOSEFUL PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND PROFESSIONAL LEARNING COMMUNITIES

The change leadership model, developed by Wagner et al. (2008), was utilized to assess the context, culture, conditions and competencies of a large suburban school district during the early stages of districtwide implementation of full-day kindergarten. With overwhelming support from families, teachers and administrators, the change plan revolves around ongoing and purposeful professional development for staff building upon systematic work of Professional Learning Communities in order to provide a high quality full-day kindergarten program across twenty-three kindergarten program sites. When districts and schools focus on purposeful professional development and enhanced practice of Professional Learning Communities programs can work to provide outstanding learning opportunities and the foundation for future student success

KINDERGARTEN FOR EQUITY: A POLICY ADVOCACY STATEMENT

The urgency to close the achievement gap means it is our moral imperative to provide all children with the opportunities necessary to succeed as early as possible. Knowing the critical timing of a child’s brain development from birth to age five, we cannot afford to wait until a child is six or seven years old to begin developing their academic and social emotional capacity. This policy advocacy document supports a statewide mandate for children to attend kindergarten at age five throughout the state of Illinois. With little need for increased resources to accommodate the mandate, the social, moral and ethical benefits of providing education at an early age have lifelong benefits for children with access

0.5 μ NMOS Devices: Process and Fabrication

The purpose of this paper is to describe the design and the process used to fabricate NMOS devices. The goal of the experiment was to design and build the smallest NMOS transistor that has been fabricated in the SMLF manufacturing facility. A NMOS transistor is short for n-channel metal oxide silicon field effect transistor (NMOSFET or NMOS). NMOS uses electrons as the majority carrier, a major advantage in terms of device speed. The educational reasons for doing this experiment is to prove the viability of the Canon, being able to complete multi-layer aligning and to increase RIT’s ability to process smaller devices

AN EVALUATION OF FULL-DAY KINDERGARTEN PROGRAMMING

The purpose of this program evaluation document is to provide a rationale and structure for implementing full-day kindergarten. The persistence of the achievement gap in the United States requires considerable and deliberate action to narrow and eliminate the gap over time. With the evolving educational landscape and the adoption of the Common Core State Standards, early education, including systematically designed and implemented full-day kindergarten are one way to afford children the opportunity to begin their education on pace to succeed. This program evaluation examines the differences between half-day kindergarten and full-day kindergarten programs including data analysis from the first year of full-day kindergarten implementation in a large suburban school district. This evaluation of full-day kindergarten reveals the benefits of a full-day program result from a quality kindergarten program that makes use of the additional time with students

Changing the World of Higher Education: Creating a Student Capital Management System

Higher education is plagued with new concerns regarding government oversight and the college “rating system” that will hold schools accountable for student outcomes. This research supports the development of a student capital management system (SCM) that controls and protects student information while ensuring student outcomes data quality. Presented is an empirical model that connects colleges to the business world, while allowing higher education to access student data after they graduate. The first phase in developing a secure validated network of student data is the connection with the workforce and to the government in a system that offers granular access to the student and aggregate data to the other entities. This research presents the findings from the classroom action research project in two marketing classes where efforts assisted in promoting this cause